“YOUR HIGHNESS?” LADY Meredith leaned toward me.
I looked up from my place near my parents. Everyone was standing in the entrance hall, thanking Aunt Kathleen for her hospitality, and wishing her well on her trip to Hawes. I’d done my part, and for the last few minutes, I’d been staring at the front door, where the Hensleys had left not long ago.
Tonight. The firefly distribution happened tonight.
I needed to get away.
Meredith tilted her head deeper into the entrance hall, lifted an eyebrow, and started toward a statue of Saint Shumway just a few steps away.
I followed, my hands behind my back. “My lady?” This was very forward of her, but we were still in view—mostly—of the others. James stood between us and the other group.
“I wanted to say, Your Highness, I thought the way you stood up to Lord Hensley this evening to be quite admirable. He’s . . . an unpleasant man.”
Sharply, I recalled the tournament we’d watched together, and how she’d seen Professor Knight’s reaction to Hensley touching his shoulder. She hadn’t forgotten that. And she hadn’t trusted Hensley since.
Well. That was something.
“I find him disagreeable as well, but my father is quite fond of him. It seems we’ll have to endure his presence until that fondness fades.” And it would, as soon as I proved that Hensley was responsible for firefly and murder.
Meredith fidgeted with her fingers a moment. Deciding something. “I do hope your father takes care in his dealings with Hensley. I’m sure he will, of course, but . . .”
“What is it?” My chest felt tight with anxiety.
Her teeth were pearl white against the pink of her lips. “It’s just, I saw the way he was with your professor. And I inquired of some of the ladies, and it seems shortly after his arrival in Skyvale, Hensley had approached Lord Roth. They discussed some sort of business, but never came to an agreement. And then”—she glanced toward the back of the house—“you know.”
Interesting. Perhaps Hensley believed Roth would be useful to him in the firefly business. If he thought Roth was a flasher, he might have wanted that power to help manufacture the firefly. Or even something more mundane, such as using preexisting connections.
I shook away the pensive thoughts. I’d figure it out after I had Lord Hensley in prison, a metal glove on that awful hand of his.
“Thank you for that insight, my lady. I appreciate your concern.”
She smiled. “I’m sure nothing will come of it, but a lady develops a sense about dangerous men.”
And Lord Hensley struck her as a dangerous man. Perhaps there was something to that sense after all. “And what about me?” I teased. “I’m a fair swordsman. Do I strike you as a dangerous man?”
Lady Meredith laughed. “Not one bit, I’m afraid! Sword skills notwithstanding.”
I grinned, even though a part of my ego was certainly offended. But our eyes met. Hers were as blue as the summer sky as she let her gaze flick down—to my mouth.
Oh.
The jovial mood faded into anticipation as I glanced at her lips, too. They looked soft. And without my body asking my head’s permission, I leaned down and kissed her.
She gasped a little, but pressed her lips against mine. Just a brief, questioning kiss. And then we drew apart.
“That was nice.” Her voice sounded a little huskier, but it might have been my imagination.
“It was.” My smile faltered when her parents called for her. “Good night, my lady.”
She curtsied and hurried away, her cheeks flushed pink.
I let my gaze follow her as she and her family left the house.
“Well.” James came to stand beside me. “I didn’t watch, I swear, but how was it?”
“Good.” Definitely good. Nice. And I wouldn’t mind if it happened again. But anticlimactic, too. Missing something. Just because it felt nice didn’t mean it felt right.
Nevertheless, I’d made a promise to marry her. I got James and a beautiful girl who was nice to kiss. There wasn’t a downside, beyond that vague sense of disappointment.
While I’d been pondering the nature of that kiss, my parents had left, the Chuters had left, and even Aunt Kathleen had vanished somewhere. Leaving us alone.
“We should go.”
Outside, our carriage was waiting for us, the liveried driver slouched on the front platform until he spotted us and hopped down to let us in.
As the carriage moved down the long drive, James leaned back in his seat. “Do you think maybe you were a little too obvious with Lord Hensley?”
“I wasn’t the one making death threats.” I started to shrug, but the motion hurt. The carriage turned onto the street. Wheels clacked over paving stones and the clock tower chimed twenty.
“If you’re right and he’s the one who killed Lord Roth—” James cut himself off, head cocked. “We’ve turned the wrong way.”
I peeled the curtain off the window. He was right. We were heading south, toward the Hawksbill gate rather than the palace. I lowered my voice. “Was that driver the same one from earlier?”
“I—I’m not sure. I don’t think so.” James glanced at my empty hip and scowled. “From now on, you stay armed. I don’t care if it isn’t princely.”
I wished I were armed, too. And if I’d realized Hensley would be at Rayner Manor this evening, I would have brought every weapon I owned. “Stop the carriage. Interrogate the driver. Find out who hired him.”
James gave a clipped nod as he pushed to his feet—but stayed crouched because the carriage was short—and moved toward the door. Then, he shoved open the door, swung out with it, and launched himself onto the roof of the carriage.
Had I known he could do that?
I grabbed hold of a lamp hook on the wall and started to pull myself up, but boots thumped on the roof, the door slammed shut, and the driver cried out.
The carriage lurched and jerked, forcing me to drop back to my seat. I held on tight, not wanting to be thrown around. More shouts and thumps came from outside, and the carriage swung wildly.
The driver called for help. James replied with a few choice words. Hoofbeats rang across the night as the carriage careened down the street, faster.
Bangs and thuds sounded from the fore as they fought for control of the carriage, but at last the noise ceased and the whole vehicle came to an abrupt halt.
I slumped in my seat, heart speeding now that it was all over.
“Tobiah,” James called. “If you’re done polishing the buttons on your suit, it’d be nice if you helped now.”
I pushed my way out of the carriage and strode around toward the driving platform, trying to look stronger than I felt. After the week I’d had, getting jostled around in a runaway carriage was not helping my recovery.
“Maybe you should consider a life of vigilantism.” I grabbed a bar to steady myself and stepped up to find the driver crumpled at the bottom of the platform, and James holding the reins in one hand, his sword in the other.
“I don’t think so.” He scooted to make room for me—which involved propping his boots on the driver’s back—and passed me the reins. “My job is hard enough as it is.”
After a few minutes, we were back at Rayner Manor and called for the house guards.
There was a general flurry of activity while the driver was cuffed and dragged into the house. “Search the grounds for the real driver,” I told the head of house security. “James and I will interrogate the impostor.”
He saluted and took a handful of his men out the door, leaving James and me in the front hall.
“You almost sounded confident about giving orders just then.” James smirked and motioned me into a parlor where the impostor was bound to a chair.
The stranger’s head hung, as though still unconscious, but his jaw was tight with the awareness that he’d been caught before his mission was complete. He was awake, and when I stepped in front of him, his head turned just slightly, tracking me. Likely he was hoping for a rescue. I doubted Lord Hensley would bother.
James stood next to me and lifted an eyebrow at me: the invitation to practice giving orders—or demanding information, in this case—was clear.
I put my hands behind my back and lifted my chin. “What is your name?”
The driver said nothing, only looked up and narrowed his eyes. There was a faint, acrid stink about him.
His bruising face was familiar, but I couldn’t place him. There was no rust-colored tattoo on his cheek, which would have given him away as a Nightmare. Anyone would have recognized that right off. No, he could only be one of Lord Hensley’s hired men. Maybe one of the men I’d seen the night Hensley and the Nightmares met.
“You know who I am?” I didn’t like standing here unarmed, but waiting to find a weapon wouldn’t send a strong signal. Like I could only be a prince when I had a blade in my hand. But no. I had to be a prince with the way I held myself, and the way I spoke. I had to be a prince with the way I trusted my personal guard to be the one with the weapon.
The driver gave a single nod. “Crown Prince Tobiah Pierce. The black-mask vigilante.”
My chest tightened. I’d been the black-mask vigilante for only a week, and my identity was compromised again.
I glanced at James, but his expression remained hard.
Well, we wouldn’t kill him, that was for certain. Not to protect my identity. He was human. And I still wasn’t sure what I’d done last night was justified. But deciding how to deal with yet another identity leak was a problem for later.
“You might as well tell me where you were planning to take me.” I lowered my voice. “If you know who I am, then it shouldn’t be a surprise to you that I’ll go there anyway once we’re done here. Your job will be complete regardless of your presence.”
“So you can have the upper hand when you face him?” The man frowned, then rubbed his peeling, red nose against his shoulder. “I see no reason I should help you.”
I glanced at James. “I see two options for this gentleman. What do you think, cousin?”
James nodded. “He either tells us where Hensley’s waiting to ambush you, or he doesn’t. If he goes with the first option, then he sits in jail with perhaps a lighter punishment for cooperating with us. If he goes with the second, though, he sits in jail just waiting for Hensley to learn that he not only failed, but got caught. And I’m sure he’s heard about the way Hensley deals with people who don’t perform their jobs to his satisfaction.”
“Exactly what I was thinking.” I crossed my arms and shifted my weight to one hip. “Of course, we’d try to protect this fellow to the best of our abilities. We’re a civilized society, after all. We wouldn’t allow Hensley to come after him. But it seems to me that our new friend has a much higher chance of surviving this week if Hensley is also imprisoned.”
“So true, Your Highness.” James rubbed his chin. “I wonder what he’ll decide.”
“All right!” The driver glared between us. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“Good,” I said. “First question: do you work for Lord Hensley?”
A spasm ran through him and that acrid stink came again. “Yes. Lord Hensley hired me to kidnap you.”